


Nothing Lasts

by HomesickAlien



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, hello 911 id like to report an incident of happy elements trying to kill me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-23 00:02:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13178052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HomesickAlien/pseuds/HomesickAlien
Summary: You and me won't be alone no more





	Nothing Lasts

**Author's Note:**

> S H U U N A Z U G A C H A

Quiet. Sublime. Serene.

Nazuna is like a rabbit in a field of flowers, always quiet and gentle. For so long, Shuu’s felt as though if he all but breaths, he might startle him, scare him off, but he’s lasted this long, it seems there might be no turning back anymore. Maybe Shuu’s already died, he’s already in Heaven, and this life is all but a dream to him.

Wishful thinking, of course, if it were Heaven it would be perfect, and never ending, but neither of those words truly capture the time they spend together. Pointless afternoons that bring them nowhere, long days wasted in classes where their only interaction becomes a quiet hello in the halls. They’re ephemeral moments, timeless memories neither have a chance to really absorb, and so when they do have some time alone to be together, Shuu can’t help himself from watching Nazuna like a sentimental painting in a museum.

“What are you staring at?”

Nazuna crosses his arms on the table, smiling softly at Shuu. They’ve been sitting outside in silence for some time now, Shuu losing himself in his handicraft to the point a conversation seemed hopeless. But Shuu’s easily distracted, in Nazuna’s presence, anyway. 

Shuu’s a simple person, one who believes in necessities over desires. Nazuna is a person he needs to be with, one that makes his ideal Valkyrie whole. To be together like this, it feels like the perfect daydream. The kind of marriage-and-kids fantasy romantic teens dream of, and Shuu is just the type to fall for that.

“You, of course.”

Nazuna chuckles under his breath, turning his head to the side to watch the clouds slowly float past, and the wind blow leaves off the trees.

“Yes, I know, I meant… Why?”

His voice nearly blends into the wind when he’s not facing the person he wants to hear him. He’s terrible at projecting his voice, but that’s charming in a way Shuu adores. It suits the image of a little doll, and beautiful maiden in a tragic love. Those are just fantasies, of course, Shuu is still young and blinded by those simple views of the world. That everything could fit nicely into place in his puzzle of this world, what a foolish and childish thought that had been.

“It’s like taking a photograph without a camera,” Shuu hums, busying his hands again with fixing up an outfit he’s been working on for what feels like an eternity to Nazuna. “It’s the only way to make this moment last forever.”

“Is that so?”

Nazuna ponders without expecting a response. Shuu’s a terrible conversationalist, it’s like gambling to expect him to keep talking without there being anything to gain. More often than not, Shuu likes to keep control of the conversation, like a director in a play, he writes out everything he expects Nazuna to say with his expressions, his responses, those kind of arbitrary things. Nazuna’s too stupid to follow along with the complicated narratives Shuu weaves, or rather, too apathetic. It’s of no concern to him, what happens next in the story, just that it keeps going. If it ever stops, he’ll have nothing left to do, after all. Being in Valkyrie, perhaps there was a time he could’ve chosen a different path, but now he feels almost trapped to see Shuu’s vision through to the end.

It’s nothing to do with Shuu, though. It’s more the dangerous curiosity to watch Shuu, to see what he’ll do next. He’s an auteur in a school of failures, of people who don’t even pretend to try. Nazuna is happy to be a part of that, of something genuine, of something that means something. It’s just like singing in Choir, even if he doesn’t have any faith in God, at least the words meant something to someone. The audience for their shows now, it’s a small crowd, but they all seem to be so expectant of the two of them. They’ve just started this simple little game, and yet already they’ve begun to gain traction Nazuna’s not sure he can really keep up with. His ears still ring from shows they’ve played weeks in the past, buzzing with self conscious worries and anxious fears he can’t put words to. 

They’re of no concern to him, it’s Shuu’s show, after all. He’s just a performer. 

When he puts it that way, it feels a lot less stressful. He can be superior to everyone and try just as little as all the rest of them. It’s a perfect compromise, or at least it would be, if he didn’t care about Shuu.

“Spring always follows the winter, in the end.” Nazuna says, curling stray strands of his hair around his fingers. He turns again to face Shuu, watching his hands meticulously work their way through the fabric he weaves together. “In the end, nothing ever lasts.”

It’s a difference in philosophies. It seems at every turn, Nazuna’s more than ready to butt heads with Shuu, challenging his every way of thinking. Of viewing the world. That’s what Nazuna likes about Shuu, and probably what Shuu hates the most about Nazuna. It seems no matter how strongly Shuu feels, it never breaks through; he can never get Nazuna to see the things Shuu sees. In him. In Valkyrie. In life in general.

For Shuu nothing ever ends, not in life or death, but Nazuna’s only dancing until he breaks down. Just like everyone else, certainly even if you fix a broken doll, something about it ends up changing, even if it’s only the slightest bit. No matter how Shuu tries to put it, in “maintenance,” or otherwise, he can’t change the way Nazuna moves. Nazuna thinks he’s a perfect actor, the type who can blend in to any situation, but there’s a special little bit of Nazuna he never seems to catch on to. A special little way he moves when he dances, unlike a doll or a person, but like an Angel.

Indescribable perfection. If Shuu could only hang on to that fantasy a little while longer, living in the moment he tries so hard to capture with his mind alone…

“I wonder what you’ll do if you’re right about that.” Shuu muses, “I think, forever and ever, there’s only one person who can be at my side in my Valkyrie, and it’s you.”

“Is this for me?”

Nazuna asks, without really waiting for a response, and tugs at the fabric Shuu’s been putting together for what feels like eons, now. If nothing lasts, all the same nothing ever seems to end with Shuu because he fears that reality. Sewing and sewing until he’s attained perfection he can never grasp, Shuu can't finish anything because he can’t accept what he wants. That’s how Nazuna sees it, anyway, and someone has to push him along, after all.

“It is, but… H-hey, don’t--!”

He counters, but his grip isn’t tight enough. Nazuna steals the shirt from between the tips of Shuu’s fingers, the thread ending with a loose needle dancing in the air Nazuna twirls around in. He stares at in in the sky for a while, just taking it all in: A beautiful shirt just as high quality and comfortable as one would expect from Shuu. A fine attention to detail, intricately put together with the delicacy of a patient man. He stares at it for so long, that he starts to see it, too. A mental picture being formed, a moment being engraved in his mind until the day he dies. He smiles, throwing the shirt on without any more hesitation, turning back to smile at Shuu with the sun highlighting his eyes.

“When it’s all over, I don’t know what I’ll do, to be honest. It’s the principle, that’s all…” Nazuna pauses a moment, dancing on his toes to find the right words to say without any confusion or mixups. Shuu hates it, and so does he. The inability to communicate is a dangerous thing to flirt with. “If you don’t have any expectations, then anything will seem miraculous in hindsight.”

Shuu laughs at that, rising to join Nazuna in the open field, it starts to feel like with every step he takes the possibilities in life seem endless. If he takes this path, what would he miss out on if he walked the other way? Such frivolous worries once seemed so beyond him, he’s absolutely confident he’s treading on the righteous ground, yet somehow there’s always the slightest bit of anxiety he might lose something important if he doesn’t act with the utmost care around Nazuna. It would be easier if he really were a doll, someone who follows Shuu’s every word, but he’s an outlier. A star in the sky. It’s impossible to chase a rabbit, so nimble and free, even the thought of trying is tiresome, yet here he is.

“I suppose so, if you set your bars that low, anything would be satisfactory. However, if you set the bar as high as you can, and surpass even that… That is when you become worthy of God.”

Shuu has a smug look on his face, but it’s never an intentional one. It’s just the way he is, pretentious and childish, it’s a wonder he can call Shuu his friend at all. Such a difficult person, what did he do before he’d met Nazuna? That’s a mystery Nazuna may never uncover, not with the backwards way Shuu is, making every question a difficult and arbitrary riddle for Nazuna.

“You think that will keep you from burning out?”

“Absolutely.”

“That’s absurd. Besides, isn’t God supposed to love everyone.”

Nazuna likes broken things. He likes putting pieces together that don’t quite fit right. He’s a flexible person, a malleable person, even if it drives Shuu mad, he knows just as well that this is the person he’s fallen in love with. And there’s nothing at all he can do about it, not as the Shuu he is today. Just sit back, and watch it fall apart, day by day.

Just a normal person, who lives an utterly normal life, even if in the moment he lives in glory under Valkyrie’s name, Nazuna is just as equal as Shuu in that light of a God they aren’t even certain exists for them. It’s terrifying to debate it, the possibility of fading into nothing and ending just like that, what a terrible reality they’re forced to live in.

“The details don’t really matter, do they? In the end, I could live any life at all as long as it’s with you.”

“That’s a heavy burden to make me carry.”

Nazuna says it in such a dour tone, but he doesn’t reject the prospect. Love is a two way street, after all, and so is Valkyrie. As long as they’re together, it should be easy to carry all the weight of the world, that’s how it must of felt at the time. Smiling, and talking casually while the sun carelessly set before them. Even if the memory lives on, it feels so ephemeral, like dust in Nazuna’s palms. He wonders where it’ll go when they die, the photo captured only in their minds to prove things weren’t always so bad.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry i had to write a fic and im having a difficult time expressing my feelings at the moment  
> this is i guess a bit of a rewrite of an old fic idea i had a long time ago. i've been working on a longfic for shnz its just,,,,, Time, i have none of it. but the fic is pretty much entirely 1st year shnz which is my fave and seeing H.E. appeal to me oh my god i could cry i hope im doing them justice because im about to go into cardiac arrest over this gacha  
> please comment !! thank you !!


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